The Red Mage

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According to Nomistrus, there have been reports of a Red Mage for several hundred years. In each case, the title belonged to a very violent (and possibly insane) individual. One such Red Mage once fought one of the Lord-Wizards of the old West.

But once upon a time, today's Red Mage was just plain old Thayo, a Silverton mage who was interested in fire magic. He and Jenx took a little trip to the desert volcano, looking for a way to boost their mage abilities; they played with a brass statue, and then they played with an efreet (possibly the one Ganeth took out during Silvana's first Challenge). Jenx ended up a little insane, and Thayo ended up with a quasi-artifactual ring (it can't truly be an artifact with efreet, Red One junk, and other extraplanars involved with it) that grants various fire powers. Shortly thereafter, Thayo redubbed himself the Red Mage. He also acquired a probably-demonic familiar, a one-foot-tall horned hairless forked-tongued red humanoid who can produce flame and go invisible; its name is Flambeau, though it likes to claim it's the Red Mage, and it's a pathological liar. (This critter is probably not the N+1st coming of the Flambeau who had a bone to pick with Tremere after the Challenge at the volcano; it's apparently common for Abyssals of varying power levels to share a name just to make things confusing.)

At some point Thayo and Jenx took a party of adventurers to the Zim Pits and recovered the Egg of Immortality. The egg broke, causing a temporal rift, but the Red Mage thinks the egg will reappear elsewhere at some later time (being an artifact and all). He also recruited Jenx and a goblin fighter/mage named Scumwort to fight against the "Spider Infestation"; together they destroyed a Spider Monk base, complete with dreadnought.

According to Jenx, the ring can be used to produce fire at will. The Red Mage claims that the fire from the ring is especially potent: it will burn underwater, damage red dragons (which made it quite useful in the Zim Pits), penetrate defenses like prot fire (at least one point per die on a failed save, that we've seen), and surpass normal damage limits (e.g., throw a 12-die fireball). It's also intelligent, telepathic, and insistent, but Thayo has learned to brew a substance called Zipquaff that blocks the ring's telepathy. (Zipquaff may also have mind-altering properties and be connected to Dreamspace. Thayo stays Zipquaffed as much as possible to keep the ring out of his head.) The ring seems pretty CE to us, though the Red Mage claims that it didn't show up on a priestly detect; the ring might be immune to divinations, it might have MRed, or Thayo could be lying. (The priest who did the detect also happens to be dead.) The ring curses itself to its wearer and can only be lost through a duel. The ring also interferes with non-fire spellcasting; the Red Mage can only take one non-fire spell per spell level, and that spell apparently goes off at caster level 8+d6 (0-5 levels below his true level). And the ring has a tendency to make sure Thayo is properly dried off when he's immersed in water; though the details of the ring's response are unpredictable, it's recommended that nobody be near him when this happens.

(Nomistrus believes that all of the Red Mages have been tools of some chaotic and possibly evil entity; the ring might fill that particular bill.)

The Red Mage appears to be a very old human with a staff; he wears the tattered remnants of red robes beneath a cloak with a magically darkened hood. His apparent age is a side-effect of the ring: he ages very quickly, but is slightly restored each time he duels and defeats a spellcaster. This aging problem is comparatively recent; the Red Mage believes that the ring is trying to induce him to give it up by dueling its chosen successor. (Apparently the duels are rigged by the ring; whoever it wants to win will win.) The ring has a large red gem set in it; this stone could be a fragment of the same meteorite that produced the Bok and the power source of the Ketronel. The Red Mage has spoken (in his dreams) to beings who talk about joining three such gems (presumably a red, a blue, and a green) to create a "pure power source -- hopefully devoid of the somewhat malevolent intelligence that plagues the current fragments."

When Thayo was first looking for a successor, Hajmola suggested that he try Elbret. This seems to be the reason behind his association with the Shorin clan -- although Elbret doesn't like humans and the Red Mage doesn't care much for elves (he shuddered when someone mentioned Elbret in his presence), they were together because Elbret wanted to get the ring and Thayo wanted to lose it. The ring seems to have other ideas, though: Elbret made a play for the ring by trying to take out Flambeau, and she barely survived the experience. (Kalis took a shot at the Red Mage too; to our present and future chagrin, Thayo took pity on the slimeball and let him live.) The Red Mage started having dreams that he believes indicate that Ganeth is the ring's chosen successor; the problem here is that Ganeth doesn't want the ring. (The Red Mage and Elbret's final break-up was over Elbret's dealings with the Spiders; Thayo did not approve.)

Before Hajmola disappeared, he brokered a pact for the Red Mage in the event of his demise. (Haj himself is presumably the extraplanar he told the Red Mage he knew, since he generally doesn't advertise being an extraplanar.) One condition of this pact was that the Red Mage take part in the war against the Spiders; when the unnatural aging kicked in, he decided to become more active so he'd have lived up to at least part of the bargain before his demise. (Hajmola disappeared before the final details could be worked out, so the overall status of this pact is a bit unclear, but he's certain that Ganeth, Silvana, Stealth, Thorongil, Tremere, and sundry heroes to be named later were to be with him when he took on Rakni. It's also been prophesized that Thayo is "to become 'one' with the Red One.")

And speaking of Haj...for some time, Silvana has been wondering whether some piece of Hajmola has managed to evade the Alliance of Law by becoming a mortal. Allowing for the possibility of the Haj-fragment posessing a pre-existing mortal, we'd tagged the Red Mage as our number one suspect. Right now it seems like he probably isn't...but that might change if the pact kicks in.

Since the Red Mage told the party how much weight he could teleport, we know he's 14th level. Jenx warns that he has a habit of manipulating people's memories. Thayo believes that alignment is a very artificial concept, for whatever that's worth. His favorite pastime seems to be burning forests ("usually only selected chunks") for fun and XP, but his problems with the ring and the Spiders seem to have put a damper on his incendiary ways.

The Red Mage is the owner of the Pit, an inn in the Drawn and Quarter of Silverton, along with several other businesses. (Which is not to say that he has keys to any of these establishments...) He's also the proud owner of the Brass Mansion, a domicile on the Elemental Plane of Fire staffed by efreet who were defeated on the Prime and are waiting out their exile. (The efreet still posess abilities but are unable to attack the Mansion's occupants...though given their tendency to try to provoke people they don't like, this restriction might be lifted if they're attacked.) The Mansion is accessed from the Prime by an ethereal corridor that can only be opened inside a nice roaring fire -- the procedure is to start a little blaze and drop in a little house made of brass wire. It heats up, glows red, and vanishes after a turn; at this point, there's a gate inside the fire, which might only do people in transit a d6 or so if the fire's not too hefty. From inside, the gate can be reopened into any large enough fire; the Mansion can be instructed to search for the closest fire to its point to origin or to shift to a known fire source (such as a fire temple in the desert). The Mansion has at least a living room and a lockable bedroom, and the living room is furnished with some rather expensive-looking carpets. The interior is uncomfortably warm and precludes natural healing, though it's not hot enough to cause damage or prevent restful sleep. It's also decidedly removed from "elemental plant" influence; the elves in the party found the Mansion less comfortable than Artifact World, the Astral Plane, the deep ether, the Veins of Abbathor, or the drow plane, though it did feel better than the Shadowing. Food is generally available, but water is not (though water creating spells continue to function).

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Maintained by Erich Greene; last changed 11-07-96